VJ News: Mapping, LPM, MaxforLiveness, Post-Screen Vidi-yo

As well as a thematic focus on video projections mapped onto non-screen surfaces and shapes, this year’s festival will see the official release of MadMapper, a new video mapping software created by GarageCUBE (Modul8) and 1024_architecture. There are plenty of impressive demonstrations of Madmapper on the 1024 blog, and it lokos like the final release will include ‘native communication with Modul8 and QC, unlimited mapped surfaces, masking and drawing, and much more’. Festival bonus points – Melbourne’s Kit Webster was chosen as one of the few selected from International applicants to show an installation. See more at http://kitwebster.com.au.

Meanwhile, another gaggle of pixel-heads converge in Rome for the annual Live Performer’s meeting. Notable this year will be the rare fleshy appearance of the VDMX coders from vidvox.net, crawling out of their bunkers briefly to describe some of the benefits of their new BETA 8 ( such as built in Syphon support, and a whole range of underlying improvements). Also of note – the launch of a book on Quartz Composer, written by VJ Shakinda and Surya Buchwald (Aka Momo the Monster).

But What Does It All Mean?

Berlin’s clubtransmediale.de held a symposium in February, with a spotlight on the practice of media-based audio/visual live performance considering what ‘liveness’ entails in the age of media technology. Luckily for those elsewhere, a nice long list of provocative people, ideas, links, transcripts, and videos has been generously compiled by someone in attendance – the UK’s Toby *spark, who is both a live cinema pioneer and currently framing his Phd on the topic. If interested in live video, plenty to chew on here: http://tobyz.net/tobyzstuff/diary/

Also well worth a read, the latest piece by Mitchell Whitelaw (resident Canberra theorist and practitioner in generative art, data visualisation, physical computing, digital materiality etc.), which explores our fascination with glowing rectangles in today’s media ecology, and how processes and techniques such as projection mapping have been offering some ways to explore digital art beyond the screen. Great project examples and plenty to think about.